Texas shivers as furious officials call for answers over outages
The lack of power to about a quarter of the state has created a widespread emergency, with families huddling in homes or cars without heat, burst water pipes, failing water systems and gasoline shortages.
Barbara Martinez said she had been burning firewood to try to heat her suburban Houston home, which had been without power from early Sunday until Tuesday.
“We got power for four hours and then it went off again and it stayed off for a few hours, came back for like two hours then went away,” she said Wednesday morning. “It’s currently off.”
Texas officials are turning on the power company and calling for investigations. But ERCOT’s CEO Bill Magness said the company’s controlled outages, which down power to millions of customers, had in fact averted the system’s total collapse.
“I think from the perspective of the grid collapsing, I think what has happened here is a response that kept the grid from collapsing, that kept us from going into a blackout condition,” he said. “Now the difficulties that this has imposed on the citizens of Texas, everybody in the state, have been enormous.”
The power issues are likely to continue, especially given that the cold temperatures will last for another day or two. Over 21 million people, or nearly 70% of Texas’s population, is currently under some sort of winter weather alert.
ERCOT said Wednesday some power generation is slowly returning and they “hope to reduce outages over the course of the day.”
Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo told NBC on Wednesday she expected the issues to last beyond the severe weather.
“Today is going to get a little warmer … but those power issues, I expect will continue, and that’s what I am telling my community,” she said. “This agency is saying things are getting better, but they’ve been saying that for three days. So, right now, I just want to set expectations.”
Why the system is failing
“When it comes to electricity, what happens in Texas stays in Texas,” said Dan Cohan, associate professor of environmental engineering at Rice University. “That has really come back to bite us.”
And with temperatures not expected to rise above freezing until Friday, officials worry about how residents will cope without utilities. “I share the frustration of every Texan regarding the loss of power during this winter storm. Millions of people without power during this arctic blast is life-threatening and unacceptable,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said.
When asked if leadership of ERCOT should resign, Gov. Greg Abbott said the company had failed.
“They showed that they were not reliable,” Abbott said. “These are experts. These are engineers in the power industry. Government has to rely upon on these specialists to be able to deliver in these types of situations.”
Weathering the storm without power, heat or water
Meanwhile, many Texans are pinning their hopes of staying warm on backup generators and warming centers.
Some people have turned to unconventional heat sources such as stoves, grills or gas generators — which raises the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Houston officials said Tuesday a woman and girl died from carbon monoxide poisoning after trying to stay warm using a car in a garage.
The Houston Fire Department had responded to 56 fire calls and over 90 calls for carbon monoxide poisoning, Chief Samuel Peña said in a news conference.
“It is critical that you understand the dangers of using open flames inside your homes to try to heat up your homes,” Peña said.
The loss of power and failure of backup generators also cut availability of water.
“First, because of the generators that are out, there is now low water pressure and some pipes have burst as well due to the weather,” Judge Hidalgo said. “So our hospitals, our firefighters are facing low water pressure, and it’s an enormous problem for them.”
San Antonio Fire Department confirmed to CNN that the power outages and cold weather were affecting their ability to put out fires. Fire Department spokesperson Joseph Arrington said that firefighters had to change tactics when responding to a fire at an apartment complex early Wednesday.
“Our normal attack would involve multiple hoses and lots of water on the fire, so we’ve obviously just had to adjust,” he said.
Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price told CNN on Tuesday evening she had been without power or water for around 38 hours.
“If people have neighbors that they know don’t have heat and maybe they do, (then) offer to take them in. Let’s watch out for each other. Let’s try to do the right thing by helping, share what we have,” the mayor said.
Galveston said most residents had low or no water pressure due to water line breaks and failures, and the city’s water supply is “critically low.”
Houston said early Wednesday it is struggling to supply water.
CNN’s Keith Allen, Dave Alsup, Alisha Ebrahimji, Matt Egan, Carma Hassan, Dave Hennen, Gregory Lemos, Allison Morrow, Paul P. Murphy, Jessica Myers, Andy Rose and Joe Sutton contributed to this report.
